What is the neutrality act?

Answer 1

The Neutrality Acts were a series of laws passed in the United States in the 1930s, in response to the growing turmoil in Europe and Asia that was to lead to the Second World War. They were spurred by the growth in isolationism in the US following its costly involvement in World War I, and sought to ensure that the US would not become entangled again in foreign conflicts. The legacy of the Acts is widely regarded as having been generally negative; they made no distinction between aggressor and victim, treating both equally as "belligerents", and they limited the US government's ability to aid Britain against Nazi Germany until the formal declaration of war in 1941 rendered them irrelevant. In each case, the acts provided for the president to invoke them by finding that a state of war existed in a particular instance. This provided a loophole that President Franklin D. Roosevelt carefully exploited to ensure that US allies overseas were not unduly penalized by the acts.